European Retail Banks - An Endangered Species

In today's retail banking industry in Europe, the current situation is unsatisfactory: new technology standards have lowered the entry barriers and increased the reach of the various players within the industry. Market players face increased competition, margin pressure and low or even negative profitability. Banks face structural challenges (overbanked and a fragmented market, dominated by non-quoted banking institutions) as well as weak levels of customer loyalty putting pressure on banks to find winning strategies.
Looking at the successes of "near- and non-bank" entrants, we start with the hypothesis that a superior sales capability lies at the root of increasing success and market penetration. Consequently, both production and infrastructure might become commodities, which the successful sales-focused players may want to outsource in the future. The consequence will be an increased technology-enabled specialization within the industry.
The book analyzes the retail banking segment along its value chain and searches for success factors in each step. Additionally, we searches for possible new paradigms shaping the industry beyond the E-revolution. Examining benchmarks and best practices both within and outside the banking industry, we will challenge the traditional ways of doing business in each step of the value chain.
Confronted with a pan European endgame situation and facing the danger of getting stuck in the middle between sales-oriented and technology-focused market players, today's banks will have to decide on their future business model, position themselves accordingly, and proactively develop respective core capabilities. New strategies incorporate not onlyinternal changes, but also moves for external transformation. Alliances or M&A transactions offer the opportunity to successfully in- and/or outsource respective steps of the value chain and develop towards a focused and competitive market player . Hence, our report will discuss successful business models, transformation strategies, key success factors, transaction structures, and respective case studies.
Only by positioning themselves carefully for the European retail banking endgame, retail banks will be able to improve their profitability and obtain a sustainable competitive advantage to survive in the future.